The New Seeds
by The Princess Maker
Summary: Set ten years later, the Gibb Street Garden is still there but some characters have come and gone. What has happened in the thirteen main gardeners' lives? Told in a collection of short POVs. I don't own the cover image or Paul Fleischman's 'Seedfolks', I only own the plot and a few OCs.
1. No Longer Just Watching

**Howdy, readers! Here is my attempt at writing a sequel to Paul Fleischman's amazingly compact book,** _ **Seedfolks**_ **.**

 **The chapters will be short, but hopefully that shouldn't be too much of a problem!**

 **I hope you enjoy it!**

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The New Seeds

Chapter One: No Longer Just Watching

 _Be Not Solitary, Be Not Idle_. That's what my wife's grandmother's sampler says. I used to spend time just staring at it, wondering what I could do to prevent myself from becoming what the sampler warns against. I was never very outgoing, but it has gotten harder ever since my wife passed nearly four years ago. During those days, she couldn't go out for her walks so she could not watch the garden, which made her feel blue.

To be honest, I never saw the appeal of gardening back then. Florence's stories of her childhood growing up in the country sounded fine, but eating things off their vines sounded gross to me.

I can tell you who it _doesn't_ sound gross to, and that's my grandson. He and my wife would talk about the garden and they would say someday, they'll go in and plant something. I can imagine the regret at not being able to do that weighs on my grandson sometimes. Then it hits me: _I_ could plant something in that garden with him! I stand up and fetch my coat. There's a hardware store in town that I'm sure sells seeds of some sort. I'll go and buy some and then scoop out a place where the two of us can plant...whichever of the seeds I buy he wants to plant (I'm gonna let him pick!).

Florence loved watching that garden as much as the people who grew things in there did. But because of her arthritis, she would not able to do much to maintain it. I'm going to make sure that place keeps going, and with my grandson's help, I won't be just watching anymore.


	2. A Community Has Many Colors

**Hello, readers! It's The Princess Maker here, with another exciting snippet from an attempt at a** _ **Seedfolks**_ **sequel!**

 **In our first chapter, we caught up with the now-widower of Florence, who you may remember as the last POV character in the book and as 'a watcher' of the Gibb Street Garden.**

 **Since we've started with Florence, we might as well continue to go backwards in the book as far as character POVs go. What's happened with Amir, the man from India and one of the few who actually has some gardening know-how?**

 **Let's find out!**

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Chapter Two: A Community Has Many Colors

Kids grow up so fast. They can also change real fast too. My tiny son is not tiny anymore, nor is he the same happy-go-lucky boy either. In the blink of an eye, he's become a _tween_...and is already acting like a moody _teen_. He stopped coming with me to the garden, claiming it's 'boring'. It took awhile, but eventually his teacher helped us discover what I believe might be the majority of the problem.

He's the only kid of 'foreigners' in his class - meaning, his parents are not from the U.S. He gets teased sometimes because of his ethnicity; I also hear he wishes he could change his appearance. However, now I _know_ of the situation, I can _do_ something about it. And I know the perfect way to do it.

I bought my son to the garden. He doesn't do much here anymore, except to hand over seeds and tools to me (even though he knows how to do all this planting stuff!). After a bit, he asked me why we were planting so many carrots.

I told him how, when I first started out here, I met this Polish lady named Agnes who taught me that 'Poles do MORE than cook cabbage' - although I got a pretty good laugh after she passed away about three years ago, when her granddaughter came by my home and told me she left us a bunch of cabbage seeds. I think she wrote something that said 'You want cabbage, I'll give you cabbage!'.

However, it wasn't just Agnes that showed me how wrong my assumptions about other groups were. There was also Royce, the African-American teenager who became the garden's 'security guard' in a way. It's still a shame about what happened to him. But more than them, the person who truly showed me how assumptions can be changed was from Imelda - who once called ME 'a dirty foreigner' and is now my good friend. The way all of us met and talked in the first place was because we were all working in the garden.

After hearing about how I met Imelda, my son got quiet but I could tell my stories got to him somehow. A few seconds later, this little Hispanic girl - maybe slightly younger than him - walks up to him and asks what we are planting. My son starts talking to her. A little, and then more. Then she asks if he would like to look at her father's beans, so I tell him to go on ahead. A little ways down in her spot, this boy around my son's age comes up and starts talking to them.

Seeing my son talk a little more animatedly gives me hope that he'll see that no matter how much people tease him, every community has a lot of different colors to it.

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 **The two women Amir encounters in the book are real, but they're not named. I gave the Polish woman who cut carrots the name 'Agnes' and the former prejudiced Italian lady the name 'Imelda'. I imagine after realizing Amir was the store manager she mouthed off to, she started looking at herself a little more and tried to change.**

 **If I were Agnes, I'd think it would be funny if people think you ate a lot of cabbage. But who is the little Hispanic girl and the other boy? What happened to Royce?**

 **Stay tuned!**


	3. From Young to Adult Part One

**Here I am again, continuing our journey through the ten-year-older plot of** _ **Seedfolks**_ **!**

 **We have seen the fate of Florence, the 'watcher', and Amir, the man from India, who was the manager of a fabric store. We continue now with Maricela, the pregnant Mexican teenager.**

 **Author's Note: This is the first chapter that is going to be a two-parter, even though it might not look like it at first.  
**

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Chapter Three: From Young to Adult Part One

*Maricela*

What do you think of when someone says 'It was a perfect storm'? I can tell you about mine: It was right here, in this spot, when I was working on the squash plants. Maybe it because of Leona's words, or because that storm happened to hit at that exact same time, or maybe it was because I was able to actually talk to someone and have them _listen_ for a change.

Perhaps...I was just ready to listen.

Either way, almost immediately after that event, I did some hard thinking about things. I still wasn't thrilled about being pregnant but it wasn't the baby that got me into this situation - it was myself, plain and simple. After THAT painful (and embarrassing!) realization, I made a big decision. As I've already indicated, adoption was out of the question according to my parents _-_ so you can imagine how the start of the conversation went. They told me that I HAD to take the responsibility.

I told them that if THEY realized they weren't mature enough to raise a baby right, what would be the most responsible course of action to take?

To say I stunned them is a understatement. They went quiet for what felt like an hour. Slowly, I told them about how I came to this conclusion: About the baby, and about myself. I don't really know what I expected when they started talking either, but my mom commented that that was the first thing I ever said during my pregnancy that did not sound like a compliant. About two weeks later, my daughter Flora was born and handed off to the nurses who then gave her to the adoption agency official.

Things were difficult afterwards: My dad was still upset - and how could I blame him? I essentially gave away his first grandchild - and I was privately suffering from regret and wonder. It wasn't until I got into a support group at my community college (I DID get that GED!) and met Gonzalo that I started feeling more confident that I HAD made the right decision but it was also okay to feel sadness about it as well.

I go to the garden still, like I'm doing now. Gonzalo maintains the spot his great uncle picked out almost ten years back. I accompany him but lately I've been by myself. I am not ready to tackle parenthood at the moment, but caring for the plants has made me feel closer to my daughter. I hope I can raise these plants right, and one day, I'll do the same with my other children.

 _Perhaps one day, you'll join me,_ I think to myself as I finish for the day. Gonzalo taps my shoulder and we start heading off-

"What's up?" he asks. I've noticed a girl, probably around nine or ten, talking to two boys who appear to be the same age.

"Hmm, nothing. Let's go." I reply but inwardly I'm thinking _Not yet, if you are my little Flora. Both of us still have a bit of growing up to do_.

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 **Maricela's part was _really_ _hard_ to write, good grief! Maricela has managed to put her life back on track and give her child the best possible chance a teenage mom can give her kid. And it looks like Gonzalo is helping her! :D Like the name Flora?  
**

 **IMPORTANT: As of right now, this story (and all others) are going to be ON HIATUS, probably until the Thanksgiving holiday. School is starting soon and there's no WAY I'll be able to keep up with homework and writing at the same time. I'll still be responding to PMs and such - it just may take awhile!**

 **Staaay tuned...**


	4. Actions and Words Part One

**Hello, readers! (If anyone is still reading this!)**

 **For personal reasons, I've decided to stop my Dr. Seuss for a while. I'm sorry this chapter took so long, but I've been busy with school.**

 **Anyways, let's hear about Nora, the British nurse!**

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Chapter Four: Actions and Words Part One

Nora

The flowers were short-lived, but I had been wrong about Mr. Myles. He lived for two years more and during that time he not only regained more interest in the world around him, but also some use of his speech. That was how he was able to send me his last request.

I had raced over to his place after being informed of his passing. The nurse who was on duty at the time recognized my name on the envelope.

The letter inside was a personal thank-you for helping him "keep living before his time" and gave me a final task: Take care of his garden spot.

No amount of nursing or med classes can prepare you for what you feel when you first lose a patient. Mr. Myles was my first steady client and the first I lost due to death. I was determined to fulfill his last request but was completely unprepared for the onset of emotions I would experience as I began to replant the flowers (and how could I not? This was our second home). I left rather quickly and avoided the area for about a month after that.

When I finally plucked up the courage to try again, I found that not only were the flowers all dead but somehow the barrel got knocked over so there was almost no soil left in it. I burst into tears on the spot. _What would Mr. Myles think, I've let his garden wither?_

"Are you okay, miss?" I started a little, not seeing anyone when I arrived. It was an elderly man with glasses and a cane. He looked vaguely familiar but when he said his name was Sam and that he was the person who started the water contest, I remembered more.

The two of us sat on a bench someone had put against one of the buildings. We chatted about how we each got to be involved with the garden and I told the whole story of Mr. Myles and how he left me the garden spot but...

Sam nodded and told me how he felt when the boy he had hired to help make a garden moved away. But even if he doesn't have a spot anymore, he will still come out as often as he can. Sam's biggest joy he gets from the garden is when he witnesses different people talking to one another.

When Sam talked about what he remembers of Mr. Myles, he mentioned "how _alive_ he was" and how he ultimately figured out that it was due to ME.

Before we parted, I asked Sam if he would like to grow flowers along with me.

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 **I apologize for the small length of this chapter but it was all I could think of during the past weeks. Nora is the LEAST revealing character in _Seedfolks_ , but it IS clear in the book that she does not have her patient sit back and let the world pass by. I also wanted to explore a bit of her emotions - it's obvious in the book that she seems to be fond of Mr. Myles and I'd like to think they would become friends due to the fact that Nora set him up in the garden.**

 **Nora's experience, now that I think about it, is also what a friend of mine went through.**

 **I was going to combine Nora's chapter with Sam (if you couldn't already tell!), but didn't know how to go about it so we'll just have to hear from him later :D Next up we have Curtis! Was he successful in winning back the girl?! :O**

 **Staaay tuned...**


	5. Choices and Actions

***Whew!* It took me long enough, didn't it?**

 **Here are two chapters for all you folks who were patient enough to put up with me! Let's take a look at Curtis, the reformed playboy…..**

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( _One day, Curtis turns and goes to fill up his watering can. When he's done, he turns around and sees Lateesha standing next to his tomato garden. They just start at one another._ )

( _Then she smiles. He does too._ )

Chapter Five: Choices and Actions

She'd said she saw me down there at the garden a few times but couldn't figure out just _what_ I was doin' there. Until I put up the sign.

The two of us had a real _long_ talk about what's been goin' on - and, rather tentatively, we decided to give our relationship another try.

And yeah, she thought I forgot about her thing for tomatoes!

A year later we decided to marry. I was over the moon! But I came crashing down when I found out that Royce's father, in one of his usual rages, managed to land Royce in the hospital. Of course the police got involved and now that whole family's split, the two sisters being sent to different parts of the city for all I knew.

When I found that out, I cried until my eyes hurt. I felt happy that I managed to prove myself to Lateesha but I also felt like in doing so, I failed Royce, who became something of a little brother to me...However, Lateesha started listing the things I HAD done for him and that had snapped me back because they were all GOOD things.

I still continue to grow tomatoes. I hope I can teach my son - also named Royce but who we can Roy - about it too.

I also want to teach him about actions and consequences, and that if you make an honest effort, you can rebuild. Just like I did with his mom.

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 **I apologize for the shortness that's starting to come over the chapters. Judging by the way Curtis's chapter in the book ended, it seems that he and Lateesha managed to patch up their relationship and try again. Curtis's character development there was really sweet, I think :D  
**

 **I also think he and Royce started, over the course of the chapter, becoming friends and because Royce is much younger, almost like siblings. So it would hit Curtis pretty hard if Royce's father put him in the hospital.**

 **In our next chapter, we will look at Sae Young and see how she's faring!**

 **Staaaay tuned...**


	6. To Keep the Door Permanently Ajar

**Here's the other part of my double-dose chapter release!**

 **In this chapter, we see what has happened in the life of Sae Young, the recovering shut-in. Has she been able to finally conquer her fear of other people?**

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Chapter Six: To Keep the Door Permanently Ajar

Much time has gone since I first found garden. English has improved a little, but I still have thick accent.

Going out and being around people greatly improved but still worry. Have to quell small anxiety before stepping out. Sometimes I go outside so quickly I do not realize it until I'm there. I wanted way to _make_ myself not be isolated but did not know how. Then acquaintance told me of local group for teenage mothers in garden. I think I recognized them.

Throughout life with husband we try to have children, but none came. Never considered adoption until now.

I matched with local baby born to one of the young mothers. Mother was also part of garden once so that's why her name's Flora. I do not want her to grow up afraid so we go outside quite often, most of time coming to garden.

She got scared of dark as toddler but I comfort by telling her about some of my fears. Talking about fears makes me feel better.

However, it's knowing that I have someone to protect that gives me most courage of all. And because of that, I will not shut the door to myself shut anymore.

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 **Heh, sorry that was super short! I'll try to make the next one longer :O :(  
**

 **Here is a look at the gardeners so far :**

 **Florence = Died, husband is narrating**

 **Amir = Still continues gardening with his family**

 **Maricela = Grown-up, gave her baby up for adoption**

 **Nora = No longer caring for Mr. Myles (whose deceased), still tends his garden spot**

 **This list will be updated at the very end of the story!**

 **In the next chapter, we'll get a combo of Virgil, son of the would-be lettuce baron, and Ana, the window-watcher!**

 **Staaay tuned...**


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